The Death of the Perfect Sentence

by Rein Raud

  Maarja had studied Tallinn’s architectural history at art school, so she could show Alex the rooms where the monks and nuns had lived and where the line which separated them lay. And so they stood either side of that line and imagined that there was an invisible wall between them, and that their outstretched fingers were touching the wall exactly opposite each other. They looked into each other’s eyes as they did so, and naturally their fingers found the right place at the first attempt, and they held that position for a long time, or to be more precise, for a length of time which was impossible to measure.

  Will I spoil everything if I kiss her now, Alex thought. Will I spoil everything if I let him kiss me now, Maarja thought.

  What will each lover think of the other, when the infatuation has faded?

  They strolled towards the exit, hand in hand.

  Alex and Maarja walked on in the direction of Merivälja, stopping to buy a few bottles of beer from the pink shop on the corner, and then headed for the beach. It was a midweek evening so there weren’t many people left there now, only one or two walking their dogs or just hanging about. The weather had been nothing to shout about, and although the sun was now shining again, it was still cool. Alex took his jacket off and laid it on the ground, and it was just big enough for both of them to sit on. He used one of the bottles of beer to lever the cap off the other, a feat which impressed Maarja. They spoke in a strange mixture of Russian and English, but Maarja knew them both equally badly, and so as she searched for the right words between sentences she would say, “er, you know” in Estonian, but they got by somehow. They knew each other better now: for instance, that in Alex’s world, men always wore ties, while in Maarja’s, people would only get up before midday if they had to catch a train or something similar. But when they looked up at the clouds stretched out across the horizon, they saw the same animals. There’s a get-together in town tonight, you can come if you like, said Maarja. Sure, said Alex.

  Ties and the system

  One of my friends read the draft of this book and as well as making some helpful comments he asked why I often depicted people with Soviet sympathies wearing a tie but the freethinking Estonians without. As far as he could remember, it had been the other way round. Scholars who visited Tartu University from Moscow, for example, were surprised to see how formally dressed the Estonians were, while the Estonians, who considered themselves standard-bearers of pre-Soviet Estonian culture, were quite critical of their guests’ scruffiness. Maybe it depends on which period we have in mind. When I was at university in Leningrad you could spot a Komsomol activist by the fact that he didn’t even take his tie off at the dormitory parties. I’ve personally had a fraught relationship with that item of clothing ever since middle school, where ties took over from red pioneer scarves as the system’s favoured method of strangulation. Looking back, it could have been that a pro-Estonian education official introduced that requirement into the school system as a small act of defiance. But it was to inevitably take on the opposite meaning floating further up the sewage pipes of power.

  And so there they were, sitting side by side on the floor in a smoky room on the second floor of a wooden house with a creaky staircase, where the toilet was outside on the landing. They were listening to one young man strum a guitar, while another played a small exotic-looking drum, and two girls sang, all of them sitting in almost complete darkness. Alex was the only one who could hear Maarja singing along, very quietly. They were holding hands tightly, getting a feel for where the boundaries lay between them, although they both knew that these boundaries were not fixed for good. Alex was confused, and this feeling had taken him unawares. Although he’d known Maarja for some time, he never dared to hope that they could be so close, and didn’t know what to do next. She might be so free-spirited that she would be generous with her affections, but Alex was not sure if he wanted to be with the kind of girl who was generous with her affections (even if his body was telling him that he did). Maybe he would never experience another moment like this? The stars whizzed round at such incredible speed up above and might never be positioned exactly as they were today, right here and right now. But what would come next? Meat and two veg, a cup of tea, and TV? The blinding radiance would not last forever. A person has to know how to recognise the moment when it comes – to avoid living a life broken by regret. Bit by bit the darkness took Alex’s world from around him, so that eventually only he was left, far from home, surrounded by forest, the sky and stars up above.

  He must think that I’m one of those hippy girls, easy prey, already halfway to becoming just a pleasant memory, Maarja thought, although she somehow no longer fitted into her old self either. Then someone switched on a light in the corner, the musicians started to look a little tired, someone opened another bottle of wine. Tonya sat down at Alex’s right-hand side and they spoke for a while in Russian. She was wearing a long dress, and when she sat down she hugged her knees and pulled them in towards her. Maarja knew that Tonya was prettier than her, that the red flush in her cheeks was completely real, that she knew how to talk to boys, it all just came naturally to her, and of course that splendid plait of hers was always on show. Alex told her about his work, the same things he’d told Maarja earlier in the day, but this time his performance somehow seemed more engaging, more inspired, and Tonya seemed better at showing an interest.

  “I’m going to go now,” Maarja said. “It’s already late.”

  Without needing any prompting Alex got up too, poured Tonya another glass of wine, and then went out into the corridor with Maarja, where they found their coats in the big pile, and their shoes on the floor nearby. Outside, Alex took Maarja by the hand again. He felt her warmth against his palm.

  Oh, if only she could live somewhere far from here, so that we would have a long way to walk together.

  But it was not to be. In barely half an hour they were standing in front of a wooden house which looked similar to the one they had left, with a light on in one of the second-floor windows.

  “That’s my window,” said Maarja. “Thank you, I had a nice day.”

  “Thank you too,” said Alex.

  “Do you know the way from here?” Maarja asked. “Or shall I go in and call you a taxi?”

  “I know the way,” Alex said, “and I know how to get back here as well.”

  It was not particularly hard to read the expression on Raim’s mother’s face when she cautiously poked her head round her son’s bedroom door after giving a quick knock. But it was an expression which conveyed mixed feelings. She was bothered because someone had come to see her son, but curious as well, because the person who had come didn’t exactly fit the image she had of her son’s friends. And proud that this person, whoever he might be, had chosen to turn to her son when he was clearly in need of help. But let’s take one thing at a time.

  Raim never had guests come to visit. It had been that way for ages now, ever since the last time he had a group of friends round, which had been on his birthday, probably his sixteenth, and things had ended up getting a little out of hand. His parents had decided to leave the youngsters to themselves and had gone to the theatre, after which they had chosen to continue the evening at Mündi bar, where Raim’s father was quite good friends with the doorman. They got home to find the corridor covered in vomit, and Raim wearing a slightly glazed expression. They fell out over that, because their boy was supposed to understand that even if no one could be reproached for moderate alcohol consumption, a wild booze-up like this was overstepping the mark. And a lot more had been drunk than those two bottles of Tokaji Szamorodni which Raim’s father had bought them as a gesture of intergenerational solidarity. From then on Raim no longer celebrated his birthdays at home, which was a shame, since those parties had been good fun. Somewhere in one of the cupboards they still had a short eight-mill film which they had made of one of his birthdays, probably his fifth, but since they had no projector, they had never watched little Raimond blowing out the candles on his cake and looking
up with a smile. Mother might have been surprised if she’d seen the film, since over the years some of her memories had been dressed up. It wasn’t actually a good birthday for borrowing a camera because they had decided after a long discussion to give Raimond the doll which he so very much wanted, and of course you weren’t supposed to give dolls to boys. And you definitely weren’t supposed to record it on film – what would he feel if he were to see it one day? But that doesn’t concern us now. He didn’t have guests any more. And that was that. Did the man who had come round not know about that? He should have done, if he were one of Raimond’s friends. He was probably a few years older than Raimond, true, with a pale complexion, true, and a shock of black hair, but he still seemed quite decent to Raim’s mother, or at least he would have if it weren’t for what had happened to him. He looked like he’d been beaten up, maybe even more than once, since the wound under his eyebrow had already healed up but he had a fairly recent-looking black eye. But then he didn’t look like the kind of young man who loitered about town at night getting into fights: he was dressed too smartly. He was wearing what looked like a Hungarian overcoat – she’d wanted to buy one like that for Raimond, but they hadn’t had a big enough size at the shop where her friend Ülle worked. Anyway, the young man’s clothes weren’t ripped or anything. A guest like that, without the bruises of course, would have been quite welcome to pop round any time. But it was still a little odd that he didn’t seem to have anywhere else to go.

  A few moments later Karl is sitting in Raim’s room and they’re trying hard to think up a reason why he has to stay there that night, since he simply can’t be on his own right now. And why he looks like he does. They decide to say that some thugs broke into his flat, beat him up and tried to rob him. They smashed up the furniture, there was glass on the floor, but the main thing is that it’s no longer safe to be there. Mother decides to believe them, although she realises that something isn’t quite right, since some of his wounds are old ones. Be that as it may, she warms up some soup, then they all watch the TV programme Think Again; that evening they make up a bed for Karl on the sofa – everyone gets into a scrape now and again, after all. And she’s truly proud of her son – his friends must be able to see something special in him if they lean on him in times of trouble. Karl must be more seriously injured than even Raimond suspects, and he looks away as he answers their questions, suggesting that there must be something else amiss, but Raim’s mother doesn’t ask about that, because it’s none of her business.

  The following Monday Alex asked Svyatoslav Grigoryevich for three days’ unpaid leave on personal grounds. By evening he was already on the train to Tallinn, and early the next morning he alighted at the Baltic Station. He hadn’t slept very well because there were no places available in the sleeping compartments: all he managed to get was an upper sleeping berth in second class, and it was a little small for him. When he faced the wall he found it hard to breathe, but when he turned towards the corridor the light shone into his face. Of course he couldn’t turn up at Maarja’s door at eight in the morning, so he killed some time in a canteen which he came across on his way. He had a couple of warm onion pies washed down with meat broth, and after he asked nicely, the manager allowed him to brush his teeth in the back room.

  He had no idea what was going to happen next. This was the first time he’d done anything like this.

  But he couldn’t wait longer than ten o’clock, and that turned out to be good timing, since he climbed the stairs and arrived on the second floor just as Maarja was coming out of her front door, carrying a small travel bag in one hand.

  “Is that you?” she asked in amazement. “Here?”

  “Yes, it’s me,” Alex said, suddenly feeling very foolish. Why had he thought that she would be expecting him? “Er, you know,” he added, remembering the words he had once heard her say.

  “It’s certainly a surprise to see you,” Maarja laughed. “Wait, I’ll have a quick think. You know what? Come with me. I’m just off to see my grandma in Türi.”

  Alex had no idea where Türi was, but it went without saying that he was happy to go there.

  It turned out that you had to take the train to get to Türi, which explained why Maarja was up at such an early hour. They sat opposite each other by the window, Alex facing the direction of travel, although he only had eyes for Maarja. How could a girl be so impossibly beautiful, so pure to her very core?

  As Maarja looked out of the window it seemed as if every building, every tree, every open view which passed by filled her with happiness. They chatted. Maarja’s grandmother lived alone in a large house with a garden; almost everyone had a garden in Türi. And there was a lake there too. Maarja’s grandmother had worked in a library until recently and now she was retired – but she had plenty of books of her own at home.

  “And now she has enough time to read them all,” said Maarja, summing up.

  The train carriage was completely full, and it was no wonder, since it was a sweltering summer day and it looked like anyone who had half the chance was escaping town. An old lady wearing a headscarf and carrying a wicker basket sat down next to Alex, and her husband, dressed in a brown suit and a white cap, sat opposite. But it only became clear they were together when the man asked the conductor for tickets for both of them, since they didn’t exchange a single word. A family sat across the aisle from them, and the little boy looked in their direction for a while until his mother told him that it wasn’t polite to stare.

  Maarja’s grandmother was tiny, a whole head shorter than her granddaughter, but she had large eyes and a clear gaze, and she clearly took good care of herself and her home. Alex and Maarja had bought some meat and vegetables at the market by the station, since her grandmother didn’t know that Alex, with his larger appetite, would be coming – although she anyway tended to make too much for Maarja alone. When she was introduced to Alex she replied in surprisingly good Russian, even if it did sound slightly reminiscent of Russian literary classics. The reason for her strange way of talking immediately became clear: when she was young she had the wife of an émigré White Army officer as her nanny. She’d once known French pretty well too, but there hadn’t been much use for it in Siberia.

  Later Alex and Maarja went for a short stroll around Türi: first they walked by the lake and in the church grounds, then they followed a sudden whim of Maarja’s and got on a bus to go and see Laupa Manor. From a distance it looked like yesterday’s cake, but it somehow didn’t want to fit into the viewfinder of the tiny camera Alex had bought in Finland. Let’s be honest, there was really only room for Maarja in his photographs anyway. They ended up being late for the bus back to Türi and had to hitch a lift. Alex found it a little strange that the driver didn’t ask for any money, but Maarja assured him that that was how things were done in Estonia. Meanwhile, Grandmother had surpassed herself and the table was laden with a lavish banquet. After all, her granddaughter didn’t come to visit very often, especially not in the company of a young man, even if he did happen to be Russian.

  “I’ve made up two rooms for you upstairs as well,” Grandma said, when all of them had eaten their fill. “Seems like a fine chap you’ve got there, although you could have tried to find yourself a decent Estonian lad.”

  “He’s just a friend,” Maarja laughed. “And I haven’t known him for long at all.”

  How was she supposed to tell everyone? How could she explain to her dear grandma, her classmates, her playmates from the yard, that it was not light or dark hair, blue or brown eyes, nationality, citizenship, or even political views which made you a person, but the other way round. It was only when you were already a person that your hair, your eyes, your nationality and your convictions had any kind of meaning. But when Maarja looked at her grandmother again she realised that she didn’t need to say anything. Grandmother was just carping as grandmothers always do. She understood everything very well. Without any need for explanations. Sometimes things were just what they were.

&n
bsp; And it was true: Grandma knew very well that when something feels right there is no place for rational decisions, there never has been and never will be. That’s just the way things are.

  “Oh come off it,” Grandma chided good-naturedly. “I’ve seen a thing or two in my time, you know.” Then she switched to Russian. “I don’t suppose the young man plays cards? In the old days visitors from Russia were pretty good at préférence, I don’t know how things stand now?”

  Alex had actually been a strong card player since his university days, although he hadn’t had the opportunity to play for ages. Since they needed a third player, they had to explain the game to Maarja. It turned out that Grandmother’s and Alex’s understanding of the rules differed slightly, but that didn’t matter, Maarja just laughed when they started arguing, and Alex could have listened to that laughter forever.

  Alex couldn’t sleep. Not because he was in a strange place: by now he was used to sleeping in a different bed every night. But he still couldn’t quite explain the situation he was in to himself. Who were they, he and Maarja, and what kind of future did he want for them? There was certainly no doubt that he wanted there to be a future. And it seemed that Maarja did too. But what about this country, these people? It was as if they didn’t really inhabit the same time and place as Alex did. Either that or he didn’t belong here. Of course he had seen the occasional familiarly ugly building in Türi too, but they seemed like plants which had been put in the wrong flower beds, where they hadn’t taken root properly. He didn’t want to share the fate of those buildings. But he vaguely sensed that Maarja’s laugh could purify him of everything which separated him from this place. Maarja’s hands. Maarja’s hair. Maarja’s lips. Yes. Maarja’s lips. He hadn’t had feelings like this about either of those other girls he’d been all the way with. But this time he knew that he couldn’t just behave like an animal, like a machine. He got up from the bed. What’s happening, what am I doing? He pushed the door, it opened silently, he stood in the doorway, and at that very same moment another door across the corridor opened, and there in that doorway stood Maarja. What’s happening, what am I doing, she thought. I hardly know this man, how can I be so sure that he is the one, the one I have been waiting for all these years? They took a few steps towards each other, and then Maarja’s nightgown felt so strange to Alex’s touch, less familiar than her skin. They said nothing at all to each other because they needed their mouths for kissing. Then they collapsed on to Maarja’s bed and tore off everything which came between them, a little clumsily perhaps, but that didn’t matter now. Alex was surprised and happy to discover that Maarja was not the type of girl who had been too generous with her affections: she had belonged to no one before, she had waited just for him. I am the only one who will be purified by that ringing laughter, Alex thought. Then he whispered the perfect sentence into her ear.